


and I'd love to hold you now

by HorribleThing



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sex Scene, M/M, Pining, queer gaze, the unsubtle eroticism of being horny for your friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorribleThing/pseuds/HorribleThing
Summary: It’s just anyone who actually knows Ricky Matsui loves him. How could they not? It’s like someone saying ‘I love to be happy.’ Well no shit.Pete falls in love. Pete makes some choices.
Relationships: Ricky Matsui/Esther Sinclair, Ricky Matsui/Pete the Plug
Comments: 15
Kudos: 78





	and I'd love to hold you now

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally for the TUC prompt meme, but then it became not poly enough and far too self indulgent. This is largely chronological but also slightly not, but I trust you to make sense of it.

They were several drinks in out, and now they are several more drinks in back at Ricky and Esther’s apartment, and by “they” he means him and Esther, because Ricky wanted to stay sober so he could get them home safe. Esther’s current playlist is like one-third punk and one-third goth shit and apparently one-third queer classics. The opening notes of _Wuthering Heights_ chime, making him slosh the whiskey he’s pouring over the sides of the two glasses he’s trying to fill at once, as he loudly declares, “I fucking _love_ this song.” 

Esther points at him with the cheeto she was about to shove into her mouth. “ _Yes_ ,” it is emphatic and wild, and without prompting they both begin to half sing half shout along with it.

“- _How could you leave me when I needed to possess you? I hated you, I loved you, too_ ,” they do their best to do The Dance along with it, and even completely wasted he can tell that they aren’t doing a very good job, and Esther is maybe worse because she’s still holding a bag of chips and can’t do the arm movements as well because of it.

They’re awful. He doesn't care, doesn’t care that Ricky is sitting on the couch without a drop of alcohol in him, looking on in confusion and delight. He’s watching them with such fondness, his pretty eyes all soft, that Pete has to stop his spinning to grin at him. (Probably shouldn’t be spinning right now anyway.) Ricky smiles back.

Ricky has a smile that could power the whole damn city, he thinks. Toothpaste commercial perfect, only better, because Ricky smiles at people like they matter.

“Wow, this song is like a whole story,” Ricky says, and Esther stops waving her arms around to throw herself at him because Esther Sinclair is Queen of the Morosexuals, forever may she reign. She kisses Ricky all over his face and Pete feels so envious he could crumple in on himself.

He used to look at guys and feel this _longing_ , and it took him a while to realize that those feelings were (almost) never crushes. Just jealousy of who they got to be and a desire to graft it onto himself.

That’s not the kind of longing he feels for Ricky.

He wants to pin Ricky to the couch and kiss him all over his face. He wants Ricky to look at him the way he looks at Esther, like he’s seeing the sky without light pollution for the first time. A million stars in front of him, all in one person.

“ _I’ve come home, I’m so cold_ ,” Kate Bush warbles through Esther’s shitty speakers. Pete goes back to his whiskey and drains it because fuck it, he feels bad, a million feelings he doesn’t want to have, and maybe if he gets drunker(er) he won’t have to process them.

“I’m gonna head out,” he calls to them and Esther breaks away from her attempt to paint Ricky’s face with her lipstick.

“Pete stay with us!” she cries, one hand waving towards him and the other braced on Ricky’s chest, definitely groping. Ricky carefully removes her from his lap with a kiss to her forehead.

“It’s almost three,” Ricky says, and shit, when did that happen? Ricky gets up and heads towards their first aid kit to get out the Airborne tablets that Pete keeps there because they _do_ help prevent hangovers, it’s _not_ bullshit, Esther. “Stay the night. I’ll make you guys congee in the morning.” They’re not that drunk.

(They’re definitely, one thousand percent that drunk.)

“Okay,” Pete says, because it’s Ricky asking, and congee sounds good even if he won’t need it.

“You and Esther can have the bed and I’ll take the couch,” Ricky says, looking him in the eyes, and Pete is only vaguely aware of Esther’s cooed ‘ _awww, baby_ ,’ because Ricky’s eyes are so fucking kind he feels like he’s been filled up with butterflies, like magic has turned his blood effervescent, like his heart has been filled with poprocks, little crackling fireworks going off inside him every second.

“You don’t need to do that, man.”

“Let me take care of you,” he says. And that’s another thing Pete wants from him.

  
  
  


Here is how it normally happens:

Pete meets someone who is undeniably bad for him (usually women, but not like… exclusively) and falls for them thunderclap fast. Examples include, but are not limited to:

  * Cathy in high school who was popular and beautiful and would only hang out with him if no one else was around, like the shame of being seen with him would ruin her perfect veneer.
  * Priya, who didn’t see him as a person but part of a performance, because everyone was either a prop for her or part of the audience. Priya who dated him so she could look ‘authentic’ and not like her parents paid her way through life.
  * Rowan, who is better than most, but isn’t human and never will be, and looks at him the way you might look at a flower and know it’s pretty because it won’t last. Rowan who flirts with other people shamelessly and it kills him. But isn’t that spotlight bright attention worth it?



He doesn’t mind if they hurt him because he’s already self-destructing, and what’s wrong with adding to it? Why pick at scabs when someone else can pick at him instead, finding all his little weaknesses and digging their fingers in.

Here’s how it happens with Ricky:

They save the world. Or at least just the American Dream, but they save something important and something precious and it’s not without losing something precious too. And then he tries to become a better person and becomes Ricky’s friend, and in the process those two things become woven into each other. He starts to trust people that aren’t… well Kingston, really. He learns to care about them.

Ricky learns that Pete hates winter so much he dreams of ditching the city by the time the first snow hits, and that he’s never paid his taxes, and that his parents are probably getting divorced and he worries that it’s all his fault. 

Pete learns that Ricky has nightmares all the time, and that he knows his father is disappointed in him even if he doesn’t say it, and that he worries that he’s not smart enough to be involved in a non-profit even with the help he has with it. Learns that Ricky cries at baby animal videos, and he texts his mom every day, and he misses eating rice _so_ much.

And Pete loves him.

It’s not romantic, not for a while. It’s just anyone who actually knows Ricky Matsui loves him. How could they not? It’s like someone saying ‘ _I love to be happy_.’ Well no shit. They watch movies and when he has to explain the plot Ricky watches him and listens like he’s more important than anything on screen. Some mornings he wakes up to a post-workout selfie, and goddamn he knows just how many people would steal his phone for that. Ricky brings him lunch at the bookstore at least once a week and Pete thinks ‘this is the literal angel that died to save the right to dream, and he’s bringing me a Cobb salad.’ And he’ll smile for the rest of the day.

By the time he realizes that he’s _in_ love with Ricky, he probably has been for a few months. And Ricky is the nicest person he’s ever been into, like a genuinely good person who is actively trying to be kind and not hurt him. Kind of sucks that he has a girlfriend that he’s madly in love with.

  
  
  


At 3:37 he gets a text from Esther that says “ _Trying to convince Ricky to get nipple piercings. Please join me on my quest._ ”

He manages an “ _uhhhhhhh no????_ ” while his face is so red a middle schooler makes fun of him for it. It’s a cruel thing for her to do to a man at work. He always knew she was kind of a sadist, but being on the receiving end of it is something else. (Is that something else horny? Maybe.)

At 10:38 he gets a text saying “ _might interfere with clamps. will have to reconsider_ ” and then he doesn’t sleep much.

  
  
  


in the dreams of others ricky is- running through fire to save people, running through the streets to feed the hungry, always moving, always helping, always strong, a symbol of the best of the city, the hope of what it could be. big hands, kind words, the perfect boyish grin, the perfect man to come home to, a touch that’s soft and loving or maybe not so much. a golden light like the sun, breaks through clouds or darkness, and glows with a brilliance of something so holy and good it cannot be denied, too perfect to be human he must be something more, to give so much of oneself is an act of creation. too dumb to know any better, easy to lead astray, would eat lies out of your hand. hero-lover-god-object. maybe all at once.

in ricky’s dreams, everything is burning and his throat aches with the smoke of homes and histories he couldn’t save, his hands are wet with the blood of people he couldn’t heal, and he’s clawing his way through creatures clawing his way from rubble, trying desperately to help but no matter how hard he tries he is never enough, he will never be enough to protect them. he will never be enough.

  
  
  


Rain is still pouring down and has been going hard all day, the wind whipping it against the windows like hail. He doesn’t have work, and all his roommates have hunkered down elsewhere, so he has the place to himself and it’s not the worst way to spend his day. With the sound of the storm and the bass of his music he almost doesn’t hear the knock at the door.

Looking out the peephole he feels attacked, or maybe like he’s having a deeply unfair dream. But he opens the door because it’s Ricky, and how could he not?

He’s soaked from the rain, the water running in rivulets down him, his drenched white t-shirt clinging to his skin. His wet hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it away, smiling slightly.

“Sorry, for just showing up,” he says and Pete is already pulling him in the door, his hand on the small of his back. He’s cold, and Pete wonders if the shock of heat is something he wants to press into.

“Dude what happened?” Ricky is bending down to take off his soaked shoes in the hall and he’s very distracted by the muscles in his back but not so distracted that he isn’t like… concerned.

“The storm is wild out there. So I went and checked on everybody and made sure they all got to shelter and that they have everything they need for now. And then I was done and I thought of you!”

Pete feels his face go warm. “You’re kind of dripping all over my floor, dude. Let’s get you dried off.” As he scrounges through his room he’s grateful to whatever force in the universe told him to do laundry so that he has a clean towel to lend him, normally the situation there is pretty dire.

When he’s back at the bathroom, the door is open and Ricky is standing at the sink in his underwear, wringing his shirt out. His skin is dewey from being soaked through his clothes, and there’s so fucking much of it on display. Pete cannot resist the urge to let his gaze crawl down him, arms and pecs and abs that are familiar but always appreciated, down to muscular thighs and pastel underwear hugging his perfect ass. He manages to tear his eyes off of him before he starts blatantly ogling his junk and looks back at his face.

His hair looks so soft.

There’s something weird about seeing Ricky here like this. Technically this isn’t any different from what he sees changing at the gym. He checks him out there, too, literally everyone in the locker room will stop what they’re doing to watch him change. (That’s not even getting into all the shit of his that goes missing there. Which is… alarming. His jockstraps aren’t vanishing because people forgot their own.) But right now Ricky is in the place where Pete lives, or at the very least sleeps, in his underwear and asking about his day, and Pete is telling him. And yeah there’s some part of him that is thinking about how bad he wants to slam Ricky against the cold tile of the bathroom wall and grind against him, but mostly he wants to have this all the time. Which is stupid.

Ricky shivers and Pete throws the towel at him. He’s gonna make some tea.

Later, when Ricky is still nearly naked and scrubbing the stovetop, because he couldn’t just come here and do nothing, he had to do something in return (like Pete can’t just be good to him), Pete watches his brow furrow slightly in concentration. He’s trying so hard to get off all the grease and nasty dried on whatever, trying so hard to fix the center of a roommate chore standoff, and Pete drinks the tea he let get too cool and is jealous of anyone who gets to just have this in their life. Jealous of Esther, and whoever else Ricky ends up dating.

  
  
  


The thing most people don’t realize is that Ricky is beautiful. Sure, they know he’s hot, the word ‘ _fuckable_ ’ gets thrown around a lot, and yeah, congratulations, gravity also exists. (Although from what Esther has said, the thirst tweets are usually _way_ off-base.) It’s easy to notice his cheekbones or the body that looks like it was chiseled out of stone by an extremely gay and lonely sculptor. Less people notice the eyelashes he has that stick out at the wrong angle, or the way his mouth goes soft when he’s thinking, lips parted like he’s waiting for something. There are moments when Pete looks at Ricky and he’s frozen in place and his blood might as well be honey for how sweet he feels. When you go to galleries and museums they don’t let you touch the art. But Ricky has a triangle of birthmarks on his right shoulder blade, a tiny constellation, and if he’s sitting around without a shirt on he’ll let Pete drum on them when he gets bored. _One-two-three_ , _one-two-three_ , a secret waltz no one else can hear.

  
  
  


Esther’s caffeine addiction is a little alarming, even at the boba shop she picked coffee despite being well aware it’s a middling choice. (His own has so many types of add-ins that it probably doesn’t count as a drink anymore.) She will drink this coffee, and then get another on her way back to the Occult Society, where she will probably snack on chocolate covered espresso beans until she goes home, and she’s amazing and he’s so fucking glad she’s one of his best friends and he kind of has a crush on her, which makes being in love with her boyfriend even more awkward.

“Sometimes when you read something, you’ll only be able to get one level of it.” This isn’t the start of the ‘give me updates on Nod’ convo that he was planning for. But everyone expects him to be able to talk about books now, even though he mostly sticks to middle-grade and YA so he can give the kids that come in good suggestions. “You’ll read something, and then you’ll come across another text talking about background on the author and suddenly the meaning of it changes completely.”

“Makes sense, I’m not always the greatest at subtext.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Esther says. “So here’s some extra context for you: Ricky is bi.”

That one is news to him. He attempts to process it for a moment but it’s like the gears are stuck. Like the loading icon in his brain is eternally frozen. Accepting the existence of a dream world was easier than this.

“Pete?”

“Hmm?” He 'drinks' a mix of boba, custard, and rose jelly, the sound of suction blocking out any thoughts that might start to congeal. Esther waits for him to finish.

“Did this ever even occur to you as a possibility?”

“No. Still seems a little fake to be honest.” He knew that she’s bi. She wears enough denim vests for it.

“Pete, we had a conversation about hitting up Provincetown if we ever go to the Cape, and he said ‘my ex wanted to do a weekend there.’”

“In my defense,” he says a little too loudly, “That ex could have been a girlfriend. The heterosexuals have invaded Provincetown.”

“Yes, Pete. But then they leave at night so the gays can fuck on the dunes.”

Pete processes what he’s seen and everything he knows. The general aura of Ricky. Something starts to click into place.

“...I should have known his underwear was too hot for him to be straight.”

“He does have some extremely choice briefs,” Esther says with the fondness of a woman who has seen them all. Pete is partial to the electric blue ones with the black and white trim. The color looks great with Ricky’s complexion and they hug _everything_ just right. “And now I’m done talking about my boyfriend’s sexuality, let’s actually work.”

They talk, but on some level he knows he’s being useless. He’s useless for the rest of the conversation and he’s useless for the rest of the day.

Ricky sends him a lot of shirtless selfies. Probably every other day he’ll get one, and most of them aren’t any different from what he’d see at the gym, or even just hanging out because Ricky is allergic to clothing. Except that it’s Ricky thinking of him and sending him a picture, and Pete is creepy enough to check and see that they haven’t been posted anywhere else so he knows they're for him specifically. But once in a while though he’ll get a pic with something like Ricky reclining in bed with his skin practically glowing. And he can see the edge of Ricky’s underwear in the frame, and he looks like he wants someone to wreck him. And then Pete feels bad because he’s going to inevitably jerk it to thoughts of his friend again. But was that the point? Ricky is hot constantly, was he trying to be hot to him specifically? Was he flirting? Is this what flirting is like for people that know how to function normally?

Ricky has washed his face with a cold washcloth when he was in between rounds of puking his guts up from a stomach virus, and let him sleep in his bed, making sure the pillows were propping him up, and got him ginger ale at two AM. Ricky has wiped latte foam off of his lip on three separate occasions, his tongue on his teeth. Ricky has laughed at his jokes and put his head on his shoulder and his hair has tickled Pete’s neck, and he’s thought about how he wants him to stay there. Ricky has said, “You look amazing,” and “You’re amazing,” and smiled at him like he was worth something.

There is something weird about the realization that for as long as he has been stupidly into Ricky, Ricky might have been into him longer. Maybe. Not stupidly in love like he is, but maybe at least _something_ . Pete lies in his bed and spends hours writing texts and deleting them, scrolling through their message history, and then planning more texts. He finally settles on a “ _hey can we talk? nothing bad i swear_ ” and hovers over the send button before doing what any sensible person would do.

He blocks Ricky’s number and unfollows him on all social media.

  
  
  


Nothing is changing because nothing has changed. It’s not like he and Ricky were actually anything (besides friends, close friends, best friends?) so it’s not like he’s losing anything now. So yeah it feels weird that for once in his life he has a routine that he has to change (a routine more than _fight, make up, fuck, get high at some point, repeat_ ), but that’s manageable. He goes for a run on a different route. He has dinner on his own a few more nights a week. He ignores the questions from his roommates about why he’s suddenly spending so much more time at the apartment. He reads more books, which is good for his job, and spends less time on social media.

(For about a week.)

And after the third time Ricky stops by to bring Pete lunch and Iris tells him he’s ‘out right now,’ he gets the point.

  
  
  


“I hate to have to be the mature one for once, but I’m not getting involved in this until you sort your shit out, darling,” Rowan pushes him back as he leans in to kiss her. “I like Drama, I don’t like _drama_.”

“You definitely like _drama_ ,” he says, sulking a totally appropriate amount. He respects her decision but he really could have used the distraction. Anything that could make him not think about everything.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“...No.”

“Oh thank god.” She sighs and grins and him coyly and she’s so fucking hot but he doesn’t even think she’s the hottest anymore, which means he has a problem. “Do you want to watch trashy reality tv and drink some wine that’s older than you are?”

“Only if we get something delivered. I’m not doing this on an empty stomach again.” It’s better than getting a pourover and using the cry-booth.

  
  
  


There’s a hoodie he’s never given back, a little too broad for him in the shoulders, a little frayed at the cuffs. He avoided washing it for way too long, pretending to himself that it still smelled like soap and a little bit of sweat. Which was gross and creepy of him, but his heart was horny for that type of shit, apparently.

When Ricky had seen him shivering and stripped it off his own body, handing it to him gently, Esther had raised an eyebrow and said, “Welcome to the club.”

It sits folded under the things he doesn’t wear anymore, smelling like his own detergent.

  
  
  


He’s currently crashing in an extra room at the monastery, and if he’s fled to Staten Island he knows he has a problem. So now it’s one of the more shameful parts of his daily routine: scrolling through Ricky’s social media. Going through his feed quickly is like looking at mosaiced porn, just a wash of skin tones. Going through his feed slowly is a little like looking at uncensored porn, _jesus christ_ that body, or maybe going to a museum. But one with a wing of Renaissance paintings of gods and shit and not just moderns. Unless that modern wing has some Mapplethorpes. The tame, not racist ones.

He used to do this with Sof and they would pick a body part to sigh over for the day, because they weren’t above objectifying their friend. Now she looks at him from where she’s doing tai chi and just judges him. Which he deserves but also doesn’t feel fantastic.

“You are so fucking stupid Pete.”

“Yeah I _know_.”

  
  
  


warm strong hands on his back his arm his wrist and neon lights glinting green-blue-pink off of wet skin, the water is warm, perfect to swim in and those hands could lead him to drown but they won’t they won’t they never will, he’s safe beside him, he’s cared for, and it the water he’s weightless unburdened and feathers brush against his skin and the electric soft sensation makes his eyes fall shut and open to the ceiling of his bedroom

He can hear the moon’s laugh ringing in his ears.

This shit keeps happening.

  
  
  


He gets a pourover and uses the cry-booth.

  
  
  


“Pete, I’ve lived a lot longer than you-”

“You’re not that old, Kingston,” he says muffled into the cushions on Kingston’s couch, from where he will not move. He refuses. He will stay there until he dies.

“-And I’ve had a lot more relationship experience than you,” Kingston continues on in that calm, paternal way that’s usually comforting but right now is just making him feel like shit because he already felt like shit. “People mess up their relationships enough by accident. You don’t need to choose to do it. It’s just going to happen. You’re going to make mistakes. Ricky is going to make mistakes, he’s gonna do it a whole lot less than you, and I’m sorry for saying that because you know you’re like my- you know I think you’re a great kid.”

Pete sniffles into the cushions, which would be completely humiliating if he had any pride left at this point.

“You can’t let that stop you from letting yourself be loved.”

“...You better tell that to yourself too.”

“I’m trying.”

  
  
  


Pete puts his arm over Ricky’s shoulder and hopes that a magic surge will somehow make him look more imposing. Leaning in close he asks, “Is he bothering you, baby?”

“I’m okay,” he says softly, not nearly as cheerful and guileless as he normally is. Pete can’t decode his expression, but the guy backs off a little.

“Yeah, I get the point, just tell a dude next time,” Jacked McDouchebag says and then with a little half-hearted wave he’s gone.

Ricky is quiet for the rest of their workout, brow slightly furrowed and worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. Panic and anxiety crash over him like water sinking a boat, and he’s certain that he’s crossed a line. But then by the time they’re changed and ready to head out, Ricky is the same as he always is and probably forgot about it already.

Months later, Pete will think back on it again, but imagine that it’s real. In his fantasy his arm will be over Ricky’s shoulder and Ricky will press against his side like he’s meant to be there.

Months later, Pete will think back on the way Ricky looked at him, and pick it apart until it’s threadbare, until he doesn’t just see his own fantasy but the truth of Ricky’s feelings.

  
  
  


He’s knocking on their door without warning, and he really hopes that they’re home because otherwise he’s gonna look like an asshole, he already kind of looks like an asshole because he’s having an anxiety attack convincing himself to do this.

Esther opens the door and she gives him a look that calls him a piece of shit without her having to use words. Very close to the look she gets when she’s about to grab her bat. Something about his expression makes her soften just a little though, and he realizes he’s missed her, too.

“Can I talk to him?”

“Are you going to try and fix things or just fuck up the situation even worse?” She’s pissed and he deserves it.

“Fix them, I mean obviously. If you’ll let me.” 

“If _he’ll_ let you,” she says and she lets him through the door.

When he walks in Ricky freezes in the middle of folding a shirt. He has no right to be this beautiful.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry for freaking out-” the words are tumbling out instead of whatever he had planned, rehearsed, gotten approved by Kingston.

“No, I am,” Ricky says in a rush. “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable, I promise I won’t bring up liking you, and you don’t have to see me if you don’t want to, you’re really important and-” Pete cuts him off by kissing him.

Grading on a technical scale, it is not a good first kiss. The way he throws himself at Ricky is a little bit like a kid playing bumper cars to win. This kiss is just not geometrically good. Emotionally though? The marks are off the fucking charts. The power in the apartment flickers in time to his racing heartbeat, and he pulls away breathless and a little hysterical. Ricky looks beyond confused, and he continues to find it disgustingly charming.

“We’re both extremely stupid.”

“Okay?”

“I wanna date you.”

“Okay! Awesome!” Ricky’s face lights up like he’s been given a gift. Pete’s never had someone legitimately excited to date him before and it’s the weirdest thing and also really nice. Ricky leans in to kiss him this time, and it’s slow and careful and sweet. It’s also maybe a little more chaste than Pete feels like being, but then Ricky cups his cheek and carefully runs his fingers around the shell of his ear, and _oh_. Nice. He can still feel it even when Ricky’s hand is gone.

“I’m gonna go stay at my mom’s for the night!” Esther calls from the hallway, like she’s expecting them to fuck or something. (He wouldn’t be against it.)

They don’t though, they just talk for hours, at first on the couch (once the laundry is cleared) and then later facing each other on the bed. They keep having moments of “yeah, I was flirting with you then,” or in Pete’s case it’s more like “yeah I was desperately trying to not flirt with you then, but I wasn’t doing a very good job.” Ricky keeps reaching out to touch Pete like he’s not real. His arm, his hair, his face. He takes Pete’s hand in his own, running his thumbs in tender little circles over the tattoos on his fingers. There are tears in his eyes.

“Sorry,” Ricky says, laughing. “I’m just so happy.”

“Yeah, man, me too.” And Pete kisses him again, because he can.

  
  
  


in pete’s dreams ricky is being pulled out from the fire, from the danger. he’s found him, he’s with him, it’s not real, everyone is safe. 

he’s safe.

  
  
  


“Are you sure we can’t convince him to work here?” Iris asks, cradling a mug of kava tea and watching Ricky carry a giant box of books, his muscles moving under his too tight shirt, and Pete honestly doesn’t blame her. He would be watching, too, if he didn’t have so many paperbacks to sort through. Oh, that one is going in the damaged pile. He puts it to the side and absently leans down to pet Ox who is curled up at his feet. He’s not sure if that’s legal or not, but a dog made of light has gotta be hypoallergenic.

“He’s running a nonprofit. ...Okay so he’s not _running_ a nonprofit,” Ricky definitely doesn’t know how to do accounting, there’s someone else there for that. “But he’s the head of the nonprofit and he does a lot of running.”

“Well he helps out whenever he comes to visit you, I feel bad not paying him.”

“You’re just saying that because you want some eye candy on the payroll.”

“Well do you blame me?”

“Who would?” Ricky has been eye candy for him for a while, but now he gets to look at him without pretending he isn’t.

That’s how it is now. Not that different, except he gets to do the things he feels openly. (Not all of them, they haven’t been dating that long and he doesn’t want to look crazy.) Ricky still brings him lunch and looks after him when he’s sick and lights up when he sees him. But now when Ricky walks by, moving a box to the mystery section, Pete taps his cheek and Ricky leans in to kiss him there.

“Show off,” Iris says.

“Well do you blame me?”

  
  
  
  


“Let me take care of you,” Pete says against the corner of Ricky’s mouth. And Ricky looks at him like Pete is the moon and Ricky is the ocean, helpless to his pull. He lets Pete gently pin his arms over his head, and he keeps them there without having to be told.

There are things he etches into his soul. The way muscles tense and release. The line of a throat interrupted by the bob of an adam’s apple. Bruises scattered over skin like spilled ink from a love letter he’d been too afraid to write. The way Ricky looks when he falls apart.

  
  
  


Esther looks hot, and not hot in the way she looks every single day, which is weird because she’s heading out as he’s coming into the apartment to hang out with Ricky.

“Alright boys, don’t wait up for me,” Esther says and leans in to kiss Ricky, sweetly.

“Have a good time on your date!” Ricky says, practically still in her mouth. And what? _What?_

His confusion must be showing pretty fucking clearly, because Esther just looks at him like he’s stupid and says, “We’re poly.”

“Yeah?” Pete says, and he’s having a hard time processing it. Maybe he is stupid.

“Yeah,” Ricky and Esther say at the same time. Esther gives Ricky another quick kiss and gives him a wave. As soon as she heads out the door, Ricky goes to the fridge and grabs Pete’s favorite flavor of kombucha for him without being asked.

“So is this uh… something you’re okay with?” he asks as Ricky flops down on the couch. He’s known a lot of people pressured into ‘poly’ relationships, and Esther doesn’t seem like the type to force Ricky into something… but he can’t help but feel protective. Ricky is important to him, something shining and bright and _stable_.

“Yeah,” Ricky says. “I want Esther to be able to go out and date who she likes, especially when they can do things for her that I can’t. And she says… she says my heart is too big for just one person. And she’s right? But I don’t want to go out and date new people. When I like someone I like them.”

“Wait so are you seeing someone else?” It’s a weird wave of jealousy that hits him. He gets jealous of Esther all the time but he could never hate her. She’s his friend. But the thought of someone besides Esther dating Ricky, someone else touching him, hands in his hair, telling him how _good_ he is, some dark thing inside of him twists and he feels magic crackle under his skin. He swallows it down like bile.

“...I kind of think the person I like isn’t into me,” Ricky says sheepishly, a total kicked puppy look on his face. And Pete knows better than to insult whoever Ricky likes but holy shit, what a dumbass.

  
  
  


Things Pete keeps in a box in case he needs to run:

  * His passport.
  * His actual ID and five fake ones.
  * Two thousand in cash.
  * Several pairs of nitrile gloves.
  * The playbill for _Midsummer Nights_ , extremely valuable.
  * Underwear, socks.
  * A photo Sofie took in Nod with Kugrash in it.
  * A Christmas card from the Kugrich family.
  * A staplebook of shitty poetry by his dad, practically unreadable.
  * A group photo from an Occult Society gala, they’re all dressed to the nines.
  * A thank you note from Kingston, his messy scrawl like home.
  * A photo booth strip with Ricky squeezed between Pete and Esther, they both lick his face. He looks confused and then laughs so hard he practically falls out of frame.



  
  
  


They’re several drinks in, and Esther is picking up far too much budae jjigae because it’s Ricky’s cheat day and they fully intend to keep it going until he crashes. He’s not as far gone as Ricky is, only in that sweet spot of pleasantly tipsy. It’s nice to be able to enjoy Ricky looking at him so damn besotted, and to be able to take care of him. It’s nice to be the one reminding someone to drink water for a change.

A new song comes on Esther’s playlist and Ricky drapes his arms over Pete’s shoulders and rests their foreheads together. So Pete wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him closer, and dances with him. He takes in Ricky’s half lidded eyes and the sweetness of his smile, and he thinks that Ricky might be doing the same with him. Humming along a little tunelessly, his breath tickling Pete’s cheek. The words over the speakers are sweet and they wash over him with the warmth of Ricky’s body. 

In three minutes Esther will be back and they’ll be eating terrifying amounts of takeout, and even though he’s drunk Ricky will still make sure that Pete and Esther get the best bits and they’ll take some of them and put them back in his bowl. In forty five minutes they will curl up on the couch and marathon cute animal compilations, laughing every single time a cat knocks something off a table. In three and a half hours they will drag Ricky to bed and in the process Ricky will drunkenly tell Pete he loves him, and Pete will lock himself in the bathroom until Esther demands to at least be able to brush her teeth. And later than that, when they are all curled up in bed, Pete will nudge Ricky awake in the pre-dawn grey and be the one to really say it first.

But for now, they sway.

**Author's Note:**

> -Title is from the “The Morning Fog” by Kate Bush, a song about learning to appreciate life after almost dying, which isn’t technically applicable to this fic but does work for these doofuses in general. General vibe of the fic is influenced by even more Kate Bush (I told you this was self indulgent), in the song “Hounds of Love” which is about being terrified of being in love.  
> -Most people write ‘Pete ends up with Ricky and Esther at the same time’ and I love that. But I also really love ‘Pete dates Ricky and then he and Esther get closer and also end up dating and Ricky is THRILLED.’  
> -Pete’s high school ex being named Cathy is my EXTREMELY self indulgent TMG “This Year” reference, because oh the young Pete vibes of that song.  
> -Cut for pacing is the part where Pete checks twitter and there are memes about Mr. March not posting selfies. (because Ricky! is! sad!) The pictures used are either teary eyed cats or barren deserts.  
> -Also cut for pacing were the scenes of one of Pete having to convince one of his roommates that he and Ricky are just friends, and then later said roommate catching them making out.  
> -Esther has been approving Ricky’s increasingly fucky selfies for months. Sometimes she approves so strongly there is a delay before they get sent.  
> -Logistics note: pretty much all of the dream team have keys to each other’s buildings in case of emergency, but usually they knock instead of going into their actual residences. Hence why Pete and Ricky can show up at each other’s places. But explaining that was clunky and so it got cut.  
> -The writing flow of this was interrupted for several days when water got spilled on my laptop (not by me) and by god I hope this fic is worth it.


End file.
